Month: February 2024

Sindh Governor Kamran Tessori administered the oath to the Shah at a ceremony held at the Governor’s House attended by top officials and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leaders including party chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

Outgoing Chief Minister Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar was also present on the ocassion.

The swearing ceremony of the chief minister was conducted by Chief Secretary Dr Fakhre Alam. At the outset of the ceremony, the chief secretary announced that MPA Shah had been elected chief minister of Sindh by the provincial assembly on February 26.

Those who attended the oath-taking ceremony were Faryal Talpur, former chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, former Speaker Agha Siraj Durani, Speaker Sindh Assembly Awais Qadir Shah, Deputy Speaker Anthony Naveed, former ministers and PPP MPAs Nasir Shah, Sharjeel Memon, Imtiaz Shaikh, Saeed Ghani, Sardar Shah, Jam Khan Shoro.

CM Shah made history after he was re-elected as the provincial chief executive for the third consecutive time with an overwhelming majority.

The assembly session was chaired by Speaker Awais Qadir Shah. The election for the provincial chief executive was held through the division of the house.

Murad secured 112 votes, while the candidate of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) Ali Khursheedi secured 36 votes.

The speaker, while greeting Shah, termed his election a historical moment. Lawmakers belonging to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, who have joined the Sunni Ittehad Council, and the lone MPA belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami, did not take part in the election process.

Speaking on the floor of the Sindh Assembly on Monday, Shah announced accelerating the pace of development work in the province. He said establishing the rule of law was priority number one of his new government.

He cautioned the officials of provincial bureaucracy to observe punctuality in attending to their duties and reaching their offices at 9 am daily. He said the salaries of the provincial government employees would be doubled in the next five years.

The CM announced that the law-enforcement agencies would conduct an operation against dacoits in the riverine belt of the province, commonly known as katcha area, while the menace of street crimes would also be eliminated in Karachi.

He mentioned that late prime minister Benazir Bhutto had encouraged him to join politics. He expressed gratitude to the PPP leadership for granting him the opportunity to serve the people of the province for the third time. He recalled that after he had been threatened with imprisonment in the past regime, Bilawal had declared that Murad Ali Shah would remain the Sindh CM even after he was sent behind bars.

Shah assured the house that he would not differentiate between the treasury and opposition benches during his rule. He said that he would always remain open to criticism by the opposition lawmakers for improvement in his regime.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Munir Akram has held the states having veto power responsible for the UN Security Council (UNSC)’s failure to establish peace in Ukraine and Gaza.

Akram on Monday said there were some advantages and disadvantages of permanent membership of the UNSC as the permanent members could paralyse the Security Council using veto power.

“We are trying to curtail the veto power of the permanent members,” the Pakistani envoy said adding that there was no point in adding new permanent members to the UNSC.

Urging for more non-permanent elected seats in the council, the Pakistani diplomat said that the UNSC should comprise 27 members with a majority of developing nations.

Five UNSC permanent members have veto power including China, France, Russia, the UK and USA. These countries have vetoed resolutions hundreds of times with Russia using the power 125 times and the US 82 times.

UN likely to vote on Gaza ceasefire today, US signals veto

Meanwhile, the UNSC is likely to vote on Tuesday (today) on an Algerian push for the 15-member body to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, said diplomats, a move the United States signaled it would veto.

Algeria put forward an initial draft resolution more than two weeks ago. But US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield quickly said the text could jeopardise “sensitive negotiations” aimed at brokering a pause in the war.

Algeria requested on Saturday that the council vote on Tuesday, diplomats said. To be adopted, UN Security Council resolution needs at least nine votes in favour and no vetoes by the United States, Britain, France, China or Russia.

“The United States does not support action on this draft resolution. Should it come up for a vote as drafted, it will not be adopted,” Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement on Saturday.

“Since India’s savage machinery has been brazenly stifling all voices of dissent through the worst ever coercive measures, we, who breathe in free air on this side of the divide, will represent the sentiments of the entire Kashmiri nation by condemning the visit of killer Modi at a demonstration in Muzaffarabad,” said Uzair Ahmed Ghazali, chief of Pasban-e-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir (PHJK) in a conversation with a group of mediapersons on Monday.

Mr Ghazali said Mr Modi’s second visit to the occupied Jammu after scrapping the special status of the internationally acknowledged disputed region in August 2019 was not meant for development of the occupied state as claimed by him, but a portent of another spell of deaths and destruction.

“The so-called development in occupied Jammu and Kashmir is nothing but a farce to hoodwink the international community and can never win over the Kashmiris who have been constantly witnessing their loved ones killed, injured, arrested, harassed and humiliated at the hands of India’s occupational machinery,” he said.

He said since 2015 the fascist BJP regime under Mr Modi had arrested as many as 43,000 innocent Kashmiris to crush the revolutionary anti-India movement in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, apart from martyring more than 2,500 and maiming and injuring over 30,000 Kashmiris.

The most painful of all crimes against the Kashmiris were attacks on their women which they used as weapons of war despite condemnations from different parts of the world, he said.

“In fact, Mr Modi is the biggest terrorist on this globe like that of his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, because his hands are stained with the blood of Indian Muslims as well as the Kashmiris since long and the visit of such a person to the occupied territory is bound to be greeted with hatred by the subjugated Kashmiris,” Mr Ghazali said.

He pointed out that while there was no let-up in machinations to bring about demographic changes in occupied Jammu and Kashmir through issuance of illegal domicile certificates to Indian citizens, notorious Indian agencies like NIA and SIA were encroaching on state and private lands and properties of bona-fide state subjects were also being demolished or seized to subdue the Kashmiris and render them a minority in their own land.

Ironically, the Indian judiciary had also been aiding and abetting the war crimes perpetrated by the Indian government and its institutionsin occupied Jammu and Kashmirwith impunity, he added.

Mr Ghazali warned India to keep in mind that Kashmiri people would not give up their heroic movement against its unlawful military occupation of their motherland.

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE/SIALKOT: As the formation of a future government following the February 8 polls remains shrouded in uncertainty, the fifth round of talks is set to take place between Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) with the former looking for the latter’s role in government

Both the PPP and the PML-N, since the elections, failed to see either party securing a simple majority in the National Assembly and have been engaged in negotiations over the formation of the future government after PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto announced to support the PML-N’s candidate, Shehbaz Sharif, for the prime minister’s post.

With the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) backed candidates emerging as the largest group by winning more than 90 NA seats, followed by the PML-N and the PPP’s 79 and 54 seats, respectively, the latter two will need to forge an alliance along with other parties to reach the necessary 169 seats in the 336-member lower house of parliament.

However, the negotiations have not been so seamless as the PPP chairman, despite his announcement regarding support to PML-N for the chief executive slot, has repeatedly turned down the possibility of the party’s inclusion in the PML-N’s government.

“PPP won’t be a part of a government like Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) II,” Bilawal had said in a press conference last week.

The former foreign minister once again reiterated this stance during the party’s yesterday’s “Youm-e-Tashakur” (thanksgiving day) rally in Thatta to celebrate the election victory in Sindh.

“We neither want the prime minister’s chair nor any ministry,” the PPP chairman said while stressing that PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari will be the party’s candidate for the president’s office.

His remarks come as senior PML-N leader Ishaq Dar, who is also heading the party’s coordination committee, has called on leaders from both parties to refrain from giving any statements before finalisation of terms for the future coalition.

“The leaders of the PML-N and PPP are requested to adhere to the rules laid down between the committees for discussion [as] it was decided that no member or leader of the coordination committees would comment on the ongoing process of discussion and the points discussed in it,” the former finance minister said in a social media post on X.

Stressing that final points have not yet been settled between the parties, Dar said that major breakthrough is expected in the negotiations during today’s meeting and a formal joint declaration of both parties would be issued once the talks culminate.

Despite the PPP’s insistence on not being part of the future government, PML-N leader Irfan Siddiqui has claimed that the Bilawal-led party would ultimately become part of the federal government.

Speaking in the Geo News programme “Naya Pakistan with Shahzad Iqbal,” Siddiqui cited the PPP chairman’s comments regarding helping Pakistan and its people and said that the party would join the federal government as the country is facing serious crises, and now making one party’s prime minister would not help the country come out of the challenges.

Both parties should share the benefits and losses of running the government jointly in these challenging times, he noted.

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) issued on Sunday a written order following its directives to caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, as well as secretaries of ministries concerned to personally appear in the next hearing tomorrow (Monday) of the missing Baloch students case.

The 4-page written order, issued by the IHC’s Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, stated that the prime minister of Pakistan, defence, human rights, and interior ministries along with the secretaries of the ministries concerned should ensure their physical appearance in the February 19 hearing at 10am.

 

In the previous hearing on February 13, the court had directed the interim premier to appear before the bench.

At the outset of the previous hearing, the assistant attorney general  (AAG) asked the court to adjourn the hearing as the attorney general was unavailable. However, the request was rejected.

Justice Kayani further remarked that the death penalty should be awarded to those involved in enforced disappearances.

“People involved [enforced disappearance] should be given the death penalty twice,” remarked Justice Kayani. He then asked the caretaker PM to appear in person to explain why a case should not be registered against him.

However, the advocate general pleaded to the court that they required more time in the case. But Justice Kayani refused to entertain the government’s plea.

This is the second time that PM Kakar has been summoned by IHC. He was last summoned on November 29, 2023, to personally appear before it in the case filed by Advocate Imaan Mazari.

Rights groups say police have detained over 400 people at gatherings for the politician, a leading critic of President Vladimir Putin who died in an Arctic prison Friday.

Ambassador Lynne Tracy was pictured on Sunday at the Solovetsky Stone, a monument to political repression that has become a major site of tributes for Navalny.

“Today at the Solovetsky Stone we mourn the death of Alexei Navalny and other victims of political repression in Russia,” the US embassy in Moscow said on social media.

US envoy visits opposition leader’s shrine amid heavy police curbs

“We extend our deepest condolences to Alexei Navalny’s family, colleagues and supporters. His strength is an inspiring example. We honour his memory,” it said.

At a separate makeshift memorial known as the “Wall of Grief”, a bronze monument to Soviet-era repression, police had set up fences in a bid to ward off mourners. Several dozen police officers could be seen standing nearby, but some people were allowed to enter through the fence and lay flowers, a reporter saw.

Navalny, aged 47, was seen by many Russians as their best hope for change after years of perceived corruption and spiralling state oppression. His death after over three years behind bars sparked a storm of condemnation from the West and despair among his supporters, many of whom are young people.

“It was not a death, it was murder,” Leonid Volkov, a top Navalny ally, wrote on Telegram on Saturday. “His life’s work must win out,” he said.

Trump’s silence slammed

Donald Trump’s last remaining Republican rival for the US election in November bashed the ex-president on Sunday for his continued silence over the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his recent outburst over Nato.

“The fact that he won’t acknowledge anything with Navalny — either he sides with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and thinks it’s cool that Putin killed one of his political opponents, or he just doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal,” Nikki Haley said on ABC’s “This Week.” “Either one of those is concerning. Either one of those is a problem,” added the Republican candidate, who is trailing far behind Trump in the race for their party’s nomination.

Navalny’s still-unexplained death in a prison in Russia’s Arctic has drawn powerful condemnations from leaders around the world, starting with US President Joe Biden, who has squarely blamed Putin. But Trump, Biden’s likely opponent in November, has yet to say a word about it at any of several public appearances since Navalny’s death was reported.

The Trump campaign, asked for comment, has directed reporters to a post on Trump’s Truth Social platform that says, “America is no longer respected because we have an incompetent president who is weak and doesn’t understand what the World is thinking.” The post does not mention Navalny, Russia or Putin.

The lack of comment comes days after Trump stunned Western allies by saying he would “encourage” Russia to attack members of the Nato military alliance who had not met their financial obligations.

The suggestion cast a pall over a major global security conference in Munich, drawing a warning from Nato Secretary General Jens Stolten­berg that Trump should not “undermine” the alliance’s security.

Biden also lashed out at Trump’s remark as “dangerous” and “un-American.” Haley, the former UN ambassador under Trump, has not spared Biden from foreign policy criticism, but she called her former boss’ Nato comment “bone-chilling.”

Tear gas and barricades were used to deter the farmers, who form an influential voting bloc, months ahead of a general election due by May, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a record third term.

 

Sunday’s comments followed marathon talks with farmers’ unions after the protesters, who are demanding higher prices backed by law for nearly two dozen crops, were halted at a distance of about 200km from New Delhi.

Goyal said the government had proposed five-year contracts for a minimum support price to farmers who diversify their crops to grow pigeon peas, black matpe, red lentils and corn, paid by cooperative groups it promotes.

“These organisations will buy the produce and there will be no limit on quantity,” Goyal told reporters in the northern city of Chandigarh, adding that a similar price guarantee would also be offered to farmers who diversify and produce cotton.

The farmers’ unions said they would decide on the proposal within a day or two, after reaching a consensus among themselves.

Switching more crops to pulses from those such as rice and wheat that require more water will not only benefit a depleting water table but also help cut back on imports of pulses.

The world’s biggest importer of pulses, India has struggled to hold back increases in the prices of pigeon peas and black matpe.

Domestic corn demand has also been rising as the poultry and ethanol industries boost consumption.

Police have used tear gas and barricades to stop thousands of farmers, who mainly grow wheat and rice, from marching to New Delhi, to press their demand that the government ensure a minimum price for all their produce.